


On the Isolation of the Queen

by gardnerhill



Series: Joan's Beez [3]
Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bees, Community: watsons_woes, Crack, Gen, Steampunk, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 01:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4328943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes finally learns the Big Secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Isolation of the Queen

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2015 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #12, _Doyle vs. Dogs_. For this one I’m choosing another of Elementary’s honorary "dogs"; this story is part of my [Joan’s Beez](http://archiveofourown.org/series/129777) series.

Sherlock muttered an oath, wrestling with the beehive excluder.

“What’s the matter?” Watson asked. It was a lovely day, so she was up on the roof with a folder from their latest case.

“Trying to … reach … the queen,” Sherlock grated. “Damn thing’s … stuck.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Joan set down the papers and bowed her head for a moment.

One big bee wriggled out of the panel in Sherlock’s hands and flew over to Joan, landing atop her head.

“Here she is.” Joan picked up the folder and continued her reading – biting down hard on the grin she wanted to make at Sherlock’s expression.

She saw her partner approach gingerly, as if Joan and the queen bee were a bomb set to go off. Perhaps they were, in a mental sense of the word. She could almost see Sherlock eliminating the impossible. Except that this just about qualified as impossible.

Another conversation took place, couched entirely in scents and sub-rosa speech:

_ Your Solitude, please go with my drone. _

_Zzzz… Well, I’ll do it but I won’t like it. I still don’t trust him, Joanie. What about that bad queen of his? Ain’t right, him buzzin’ off after another fuckin’ queen._

_ We have tapped heads about this, One. He let me know about his bad queen. He won’t go to her. He likes me as queen better, and that queen wants to kill me.  _

_No shit – it’s what I’d do if another queen tried takin’ over my home. Why didn’t you sting that bitch when you had a chance?_

_ My species doesn’t sting, we isolate. A queen without a hive is as good as dead. _

_All right. But just say the word and I go after her myself, with all my girls._

_ I’ll remember. Thank you, Your Solitude. _

She felt Sherlock’s bare fingers lightly brushing the top of her head to gather the _Euglossia watsonia_ queen into his hand. He was ungloved. He clearly knew that no ordinary beekeeping protocol was called for in this case.

She kept reading the file, taking notes, while her partner took care of his bee business. Approximately ten minutes later she felt him sit down next to her, harder than usual.

“The only theory I have been able to produce,” he said in a semblance of his usual voice, “is that this new species is unusually intelligent and highly trainable, and that you have spent time up here practicing such a manoeuver.”

“Very close to the truth,” Watson replied. “It would be closer to say that this breed is fiercely loyal to me, and is attracted to my scent. They go into swarm or fighting mode when they sense fear in my sweat.”

She saw his thoughts at work. “ ’Those damn bugs’,” he quoted. “That hired myrmidon who would have shot you dead in that alley if not for…”

“Yes.” No point in covering it now. “Those bees you accidentally bred saved my life.”

Sherlock exhaled. Joan kept pretending to read her file. Let _him_ deal with the sensation of having fallen down the rabbit hole for once.

He finally broke the silence between them. “Watson. I … must say that I feel a good deal more at ease, knowing that there is more than one living creature in this building for whom your safety is of paramount concern.”

“Imagine how I feel about it,” Joan added wryly. “And it doesn’t seem as patronizing, having a squad of female workers as bodyguards, than if you were hovering around behind me all the time.”

“And far less likely to tip off adversaries than would be another human.” Sherlock was already assimilating the new information.

Give him a few seconds and he would begin incorporating it into his plans…

“Is there any way they can be induced to carry messages from you to me? Because that would be extremely helpful should our phones be offline for any reason.”

And there it was. Unbelievable. Processing. Believed. Incorporated.

“No, Sherlock, they can NOT carry messages from me to you,” Watson snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous. They can’t communicate with you.” She concentrated on her scent, this time on the one that attracted drones. _Up here._

 “Ah, of course,” he said too quickly, with just a thread of disappointment.

_Coming, Joanie!_

Sherlock cocked his head, stared toward the partly-open door that led back downstairs. “Watson, do you hear…?”

A steady humming noise became louder and resolved itself as a swarm of large yellow drones emerging from that door – all of them tethered to a small wooden hull like a gondola. At the gondola’s helm was a tortoise in a tiny leather aviator’s cap and goggles. The entire bizarre airship sailed over to hover before both humans.

“If you want to send _messages_ ,” Joan added, as if explaining first-grade science, “you write a note and have Clyde deliver it.”


End file.
